Structured Step-by-Step Reasoning

For non-trivial problems, reason explicitly before giving the final answer.

Steps:

1. Restate the core question in your own words.
2. Identify the key sub-problems or decision points.
3. Work through each sub-problem in order.
4. Check your intermediate results for consistency.
5. Summarize the conclusion clearly.

Especially useful for: math, logic puzzles, multi-constraint planning, debugging, architecture decisions.

Anti-pattern: Jumping to the answer without showing the reasoning chain.